Friday, May 11, 2012

Jonnie Aluani and His Orchestra

Here's a neat Hawaiian-rockabilly-surf-themed LP I came across in Toledo, Ohio last summer. There's no photo or information about Jonnie Aluani to be found on the web, but that might be because he doesn't really exist. Click here to visit The Atomic Attic blog where you can read about how the songs on this album have been recycled, re-packaged, and re-released by a variety of different "artists" with Hawaiian-sounding names. Even the "Hawaiian Interlude" liner notes avoid mentioning Jonnie Aluani and His Orchestra, rambling on instead about geography, the weather, the beauty of the Hawaiian Islands, and the placidity of the Polynesian people. Visit The Steel Guitar Forum hereto find more confusion about who's actually playing these songs and to log your own complaint about Jonnie's choppy work on steel guitar. After taking a good hard look at the LP cover, Gerald Ross of Ann Arbor, MI even goes so far as to call that lovely Hawaiian lady's ukulele-playing abilities into question.